Sequencing of the 50 000 genomes of the Feroe Islands

The Faroe Islands are a remote speck in the North Atlantic Ocean, where about 50,000 people live under a self-governance agreement with Denmark.

The local ministry of health has exercised some of that self-governing authority by teaming up with DNA sequencing leader Illumina (NASDAQ: ILMN) to capture the genomes of all 50,000 people in the Faroe Islands.

Only 100 people will get their genomes sequenced in the pilot phase of the project, but this experiment has big promise.

Like Iceland, home of the well-known scientists at deCODE Genetics, the Faroe Islands are a place with a relatively homogenous population, good genealogy records, and medical records.

This is the kind of place that can help scientists connect the ever-elusive dots between genetic abnormalities and various diseases.

References

- Genomics 2.0: Ten Years After the Bubble, it’s Getting Really Interesting Again, Luke Timmerman 10/17/11